Chapter 205

Chapter 205: Acceleration

Morris sat on the first floor of the antique shop, tense as he waited for time to pass.

Outside, the downpour still raged and the cold wind howled. After being blocked and muffled by doors and windows, the sound of wind and rain turned into a strange, unsettling wail, like waves crashing against a lone island in a storm, beating again and again from every direction. Beyond the shop window, he could no longer see the view on the opposite side of the street.

Nina and Shirley had also come downstairs. The two girls ran to the windows, nervously watching the wind and rain outside and whispering to each other from time to time.

The mysterious young woman called “Alice”, however, seemed to feel none of this tension. She too gazed out the window, but her eyes held only curiosity and delight— a kind of delight Morris simply could not understand.

“The scenery in the city-state is really interesting,” Alice suddenly spoke. Her abrupt voice carried a strange charm and cut right through the sounds of wind and rain. “But you all look so nervous… is this very scary?”

“Miss Alice, you’re not scared?” Nina turned her head at the sound and asked curiously.

“Not at all. It’s fun.” Alice smiled and shook her head slightly with a reserved air. “And Mr. Duncan will solve every problem.”

“Miss Alice, do you know what’s actually happening?” Nina bit her lip and asked bravely. She looked into Alice’s eyes, at this beautiful lady who had somehow met her uncle at some point, who seemed to be on very good terms with him, yet whom Nina had never seen before. “You seem… to really trust Uncle Duncan?”

“I trust him very much,” Alice answered as if it were obvious. “I don’t know what exactly is going on, but Mr. Duncan will take care of it in the end anyway.”

Her overly calm and straightforward attitude actually left Nina speechless for a moment, unsure how to keep the conversation going. Just then, an especially loud clap of thunder exploded right outside the window. The sudden boom startled everyone and cut off all talk in the shop.

Shirley and Nina instinctively covered their ears and hunched their shoulders. After a brief daze, however, Morris seemed to sense something. He suddenly lifted his head and looked toward the window.

“Vanna has returned…”

The old man murmured to himself, then repeated it again, this time in a louder voice: “Vanna has returned!”

“You mean that Inquisitor?” Shirley turned her head in surprise when she heard Morris suddenly shouting. “What about that Inquisitor? What’s this about her ‘coming back’?”

Morris didn’t answer her, because he didn’t know how to explain it either. He just let out a long breath. Even though it was only the jumbled, fractured memories in his mind suddenly pulling together on their own, it felt to him as if he had seen a ray of sunlight on this stormy day. His whole body relaxed.

The old man reached out and took the teacup beside him.

In that moment, even the hard-to-swallow tea in the cup seemed to taste… a little better.

……

The wall of ghostly green fire faded away. The dim underground sanctum returned to its earlier state, leaving only one last flicker of flame floating quietly beside Duncan so he could see this place in the dark.

Vanna had already left “this side” and now reached the other side of the Veil.

Like a bright beacon, she clearly traced out the path that pierced through the Veil for Duncan. He could feel how she had left this place— and he could confirm that his guess was correct.

He let out a soft breath and looked up at the spot where Vanna had last stood.

“…To be fair, that jump slash really is frightening.”

He muttered under his breath and then turned to walk toward the entrance of the underground sanctum, stopping near the tightly closed door.

The door had closed again. A battered body was slumped on the floor, leaning against it. She pressed her whole weight against the door, a longsword clenched in her hands, and sword marks and bloodstains covered the floor around her.

Among the crisscrossing sword marks, the numbers “1885”, carved by the nun with her last strength, could still be made out.

The cycle turned as always, over and over.

History here had already solidified. Vanna’s intervention had not stopped the closed loop of time from continuing. She was indeed powerful, but she still lacked the power to interfere with the flow of time itself.

Duncan stood quietly beside the nun for a moment, then slowly reached out his hand. Just then, the nun’s body twitched. She slowly lifted her head. Her weak eyes forced themselves open as she looked with curious, confused gaze at the uninvited guest before her.

“…Oh. Just as I thought, you still weren’t dead at the moment you braced the door.” Duncan met the nun’s gaze, his tone calm. “Is there anything you want to say?”

“…I had a brief dream. I dreamed that a battle sister appeared here. She tried to let me rest within this cycle, but she failed,” the nun said softly. “…She really came, didn’t she?”

“She did everything she could, but this isn’t the field she’s best at. Now she’s gone back to her own battlefield.” Duncan bent down and laid his hand gently on the blade of the nun’s longsword. A tiny blossom of ghostly green flame danced at his fingertips, flowing along the edge of the sword like water. “I’ll take over the rest.”

“…Are you also a Guardian of the city-state?” The nun no longer seemed to have the strength to fully open her eyes. Her eyelids drooped as she mumbled softly in a half-dreaming voice. “I’ve never seen you before…”

“I’m not,” Duncan shook his head slightly. “But I can be, for now.”

But the nun seemed no longer able to hear his voice. Her eyes closed completely, as if she were slowly stepping into a dream. In the last moment before eternal sleep fell, her lips moved and she whispered: “…Please bear witness…”

“I bear witness.”

The ghostly green flame rose into the air. With Duncan’s words, it suddenly swept over everything in his sight. The nun, her longsword, and all the blood around them all turned to ash in the fire. Under his conscious control, every trace of extraordinary power in this place was stripped away by this burning.

When the flames burned out, they consumed not only a single body, but the entire closed time loop. In the dim underground sanctum, only a few tiny sparks still danced on the floor, flowing along the sword marks like a trickling stream and, before they faded at last, burning away the numbers “1885”.

Duncan waited quietly for it all to end before he finally shook his head with a soft sigh. Then he stepped forward and pulled open the door that led from the underground sanctum to the small cathedral above.

For the first time since 1885, this door was opened from inside the underground sanctum.

Duncan climbed the steps, walked up the long staircase, and reached the ground-level part of the small cathedral. He passed through the collapsed, ruined main hall, past row after row of abandoned pews and the ashes covering the floor, and made his way toward the street outside.

Ghostly green flames appeared like phantoms, gathering in the air around him and spreading and burning outward with his steps. The Spirit Fire that had already been spreading within the Veil sensed its master drawing near. One by one, those flames resonated with him, converging and beginning to roar to life throughout the small cathedral.

By the time Duncan walked out through the main doors and looked back at the small cathedral, the entire building was already wrapped in a sweeping blaze of Spirit Fire.

Farther out in his sight, in every corner of the surrounding blocks, in nearby districts, and even on the far edge of the city-state, cluster after cluster of Spirit Fire also began to leap, spread, and blaze up. They turned into Sacred beacon Torches of all sizes and slowly linked together into a continuous sea.

All of them were Spirit Fire that had suddenly shifted into “active” state after sensing that Duncan had entered the inner side of the Veil.

Without anyone noticing, they had already spread across such a vast range.

And as these flames rose, Duncan also felt something else waking within the city-state. Roars rose one after another. Ash and dust in the streets and alleys squirmed and heaved. Crimson fire leaped up in many places, looking fierce and violent.

Duncan lifted his head and looked toward somewhere deep within the city-state. “Only getting nervous now? That may be a little late.”

……

On the Vanished, Duncan pushed open the door of the captain’s cabin. He strode to the chart table, braced his hands on it, and looked down at the enchanted sea chart. His voice was low. “How far are we from the city-state?”

“Oh, great captain, less than two days’ sailing remains,” Goathead’s eager voice sounded at once. “In theory, we might now run into merchant ships or navy patrol craft running the route to and from the city-state…”

Duncan listened to Goathead’s rambling without interrupting, calculating something silently. Then he suddenly straightened, left the chart table, and pushed open the cabin door to go outside.

Goathead’s surprised voice came from behind him. “Ah, captain, what are you going to do?”

Duncan was already striding out of the cabin. He crossed the aft deck, went up the stairway, and came to the platform above the captain’s quarters. He answered offhandedly in his mind, “From here on, I’ll take the helm myself.”

“…Yes, captain!”

Goathead’s response rang out clearly. The next second, Duncan felt the whole hull of the Vanished tremble slightly. In his senses, the ship suddenly seemed to come “alive”. Every living part of it seemed to perk up.

And when he gripped the wheel, the ship that had long been ready slipped at once into peak condition. Its translucent spirit form sails billowed even fuller. Taut lines thrummed in the air. The hull murmured in a low voice under the slap of the waves. The sea around the ship seemed to fall under an unseen pull as wave after wave rose, as if to push the ship forward.

The Vanished’s speed rose sharply.

Feeling the distance between himself and the body in the antique shop shrinking bit by bit, Duncan let out a quiet breath.

But suddenly, a strange feeling rose again from the depths of his heart.

It was a subtle sense of being noticed from afar, of being regarded as a “target”.

It felt as if, the instant he took the helm, something suddenly sensed the ship’s existence and was now sailing straight toward them.

Duncan frowned and looked in the direction that subtle feeling came from. Almost at the same moment, he heard Goathead’s voice sound in his mind:

“Captain, the Sea Mist has appeared near us.”